Reachings, attainments, critiques. בע"ה

17 August 2017

I feel very positive about the initiative. It comes from the North Park neighborhood of Chicago, see @HateHasNoHomeHere on Facebook or https://hatehasnohome.org. The English phrase is credited to a 3rd grader and a kindergartner. The wording is something of a double negative (hate...has no) but the graphic expresses the unity of love and America--a positive message.

‎השנאה לא יכול לחיות פה was the Hebrew phrase used in the first versions of the sign. I agree that it is not well-chosen. They have moved to the much-improved לשנאה אין בית כאן in new versions.

In my Chicago neighborhood, West Rogers Park, some blocks have many of the signs. My gross generalization is that 'frummer' blocks are less likely to have them and blocks with more liberal, diverse, hipper people are more likely to. The incidence of the sign may be correlated to the voting patterns of different precincts made public by DNA Info.

With all the misanthropy we are experiencing at the highest levels of our government, I felt it was about time for me to express publicly a preference for love over hate. I downloaded a sign and had it printed up at Office Max for 59 cents. I chose a blue sign, though I could have chosen a red one (the organizers don't want to associate the signs with any political party). One has many options for languages. I chose a sign that reflects some of the languages used in my near vicinity: English, Spanish, Hindi, Arabic, Urdu, Hebrew, and Assyrian, see https://hatehasnohomehere.org/download/artwork/. . I was particularly tickled by the opportunity to include Assyrian! Had I preferred, I could have chosen Hmong, Swahili, Amharic...

I am inspired by the grassroots, let's-do-it attitude of the organizers. I am not aware of negative reactions, though they may exist.

A visit to the Illinois Holocaust Museum on Tisha beAv made me appreciate how difficult it was for Jewish refugees to enter the US during the years of the Shoah. The US had its analogue to 'extreme vetting' then. If I wish the US had been more embracing of Jewish refugees then, how can I not express sympathy for refugees now? The "Hate Has No Home Here" sign is not going to directly improve the lot of any refugee or immigrant, but I hope it will inspire me and others to do acts that will. I am inspired by the work of HIAS in this area.

After Charlottesville, and our president's implicit equation of white supremacists with their opponents, I feel that the sign is more important than I did at first.

The photo comes from the Facebook page of Hate Has No Home Here and depicts a scene in West Rogers Park.

14 February 2017

Rabbi Eliezer HaKappar taught:
Jealousy, desire, and honor remove one from the world.
(Ethics of the Fathers 4:21).

Jealousy: For example, "How dare she receive more votes than me?"
Desire: The desire to continue to pursue the acquisition of wealth, when one's position requires one to focus on governance
Honor: The assumption that one's people should consider him deserving of glory regardless of his actions.
Remove את האדם / et ha'adam / the human from the world: These negative dispositions damage the integrity of the society and make it less humane and less human.

All three of these negative dispositions involve boundary crossing. When the crossing is modeled by the leader of a land, it is to be expected that the entire leadership structure of the land will follow the same model, to the detriment of the 'world', the society, and the world.